Computer and communication technologies continue to advance at a rapid pace. Indeed, computer and communication technologies are involved in many aspects of business operations. For example, a business may be located in numerous places with computers at each location. Computers may allow a business to maintain data relating to the business operations, customers, services, etc. Employees of a business may enter the data into the computers by utilizing business applications that run on the computers. Applications may also allow the employee to manage the data after it has been entered into the computer.
Data stored in a computer or a computer system is typically organized into a file, a database, or another type of data repository. It is not uncommon for an enterprise (e.g., corporation, small business, non-profit institution, government body, etc.) to have data stored in several different types of data repositories. There may be many reasons for this. For example, an enterprise may have inherited some data repositories as a result of mergers, acquisitions or the like with other enterprises. Alternatively, different departments within the same enterprise may have different needs which are best satisfied by different types of computer systems having different types of data repositories. The different data repositories maintained by an enterprise may be located in a variety of different computer systems, which may be dispersed around an office, around a campus, or even around the world.
An employee may utilize an application to enter data relating to the identity of a particular customer. For example, an employee may enter identity data such as the customer's name, date of birth, residential address, business address, network identification, social security number, account numbers, etc. A business may be more efficient by maintaining such identity data. For example, an employee is not required to enter identity data for a particular customer each time the customer interacts with the business because the data is already stored within the computers of the business.
Many businesses maintain many computer systems at various locations. A computer system at one location may differ from a computer system at another location. In particular, application, data and/or databases on one computer system may differ from application, data and/or databases on other computers. Often, data relating to the identity of a particular customer may change. For example, a customer may change residence and the residential address of the customer may need to be updated in the business computers. Because the business applications running on various computers may differ from each other, it may require a substantial amount of time and resources to ensure that changed identity data is updated on each business computer. In addition, it may require a substantial amount of time and resources to search for and to find a particular person or entity. As such, benefits may be realized by improved systems and methods for managing identities in a database system.